film

Summer of Angela: The Pirates of Penzance (1983)

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 16 Comments

This summer I am watching Angela Lansbury movies for the Summer of Angela. Up this week we have The Pirates of Penzance, which is a bit of a switch up from my original list. You can read more about that below, but first just a quick note —  Last week, Cat from Cat’s Wire watched Gaslight and talked about it on her blog. You can read her thoughts here. She compared the British and American movie versions and a German televised version of the original play, and I think the post is so much fun!

And now on to this week’s movie, which I switched around from my original plan. I was going to watch the TV movie, The Shell Seekers, but instead, I thought that I would watch one of Angela’s Broadway/musical performances for fun — The Pirates of Penzance with her and Kevin Kline. The movie is a reproduction of the Joseph Papp’s Broadway production.

I will tell you upfront that halfway through the movie, I had to check that I wasn’t having a fever dream. I also realized I’m very old and my ears are in even worse condition than I thought because I had no idea what was being said in any of the songs. I even tried close captioning but because I watched it for free on YouTube, it didn’t work so well.

I also couldn’t figure out what was happening most of the time.  Still, I pushed forward and ended up enjoying it in places and being utterly baffled in other places.

A description from Google:

“Frederic (Rex Smith), who has spent his formative years as a junior pirate, plans to mark his 21st birthday by breaking free from the Pirate King (Kevin Kline) and beginning his courtship of Mabel (Linda Ronstadt). But because he was born on Feb. 29, a date that only arrives every fourth year, Frederic isn’t technically 21 — and the Pirate King is still his master. Unless something gives, Frederic will soon be on a collision course with the Pirate King’s new nemesis: Mabel’s father.”

 The movie starts with the people in town coming out of church, seeing the pirate ship off shore, and locking up all their doors.

Then we are on the pirate ship with Frederic and the Pirate King and the rest of the crew celebrating Frederic’s birthday. It is after all the singing that Frederic announces that now that he is 21 he can leave the ship and his service with the Pirate King.

This is when Ruth (Angela), Frederic’s nursemaid, tells him that all those years ago when his father wanted him to apprentice with a pilot and she heard “pirate” instead.

Frederic has a strong sense of duty, which is why he stayed with the pirates and committed crimes with them all those years. But now that he is no longer bound to them, he vows that when he leaves the ship, he will fight against the pirate and the criminal acts he and his crew try to commit.

“Individually, I love you all, with affection unspeakable. But collectively, I look upon you with a disgust that amounts to absolute detestation.”

Frederic sees pirates as scum but if they are going to be actual pirates, he does wish they would attack people stronger than them instead of pretending they just don’t want to hurt anyone. Instead, they just don’t want to get beaten. There is also a whole song about how they won’t attack anyone who says they are an “orphan” because they are also orphans.

This word said in a British accent becomes important later in the movie when there is a whole hilarious debate about if they are saying “orphan” or “often.”

Anyhow, Ruth wants to leave with Frederic and marry him, but Frederic isn’t so sure about it. He’s never really met other women and wants to know if Ruth is attractive. The pirate and crew assure him that she is, simply because they would like to get rid of her too.

Frederic agrees to take Ruth with him but discovers, when he sees a group of women frolicking together near a small pond, that she is not actually attractive and is instead just old.

He sends Ruth away and approaches the women, who turn out to be sisters, and asks which one of them would like to marry him.

Yeah….this musical is weird.

What follows is a song where he hits an incredible note and does a little impression of Elvis.

A lot of silliness follows all this including the singing of the famous song “I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major General.” That was a lot of fun. I always wondered what the song came from. The speed which the nonsense for this song is spit out is insane.

Fun is the key word for this movie. The songs are fun – though I still don’t know what they were saying in half of them. Wait. I’ve mentioned it like ten times now that I didn’t know what they were saying half the time, didn’t I? Okay, I’ll stop doing that.

Also, I did finally look up the lyrics so I could follow along. They didn’t make much more sense that way, but, hey, at least I knew what was being said.

I should note that I did read that a lot of this musical is satire and making fun of some elements of British society during the time the original comedic opera was written in 1879, which is why it seems ridiculous at times.

One thing I can say after seeing this is that Angela was so talented — it seems like there wasn’t anything she couldn’t do — acting, singing, dancing, producing, writing… wow. I’m still trying to figure out if she actually hit the high note in the one song but if she did…wow again!

I am a huge fan of some musicals — Fiddler on the Roof, Singing in the Rain, South Pacific, etc., but this one? I didn’t know what to make of it at first, and from what I am reading, that is a bit of the point of Gilbert and Sullivan musicals.

Their musicals are, I guess, nonsensical at times, and that’s what makes them fun. After reading more about the musical/movie, I understood it more, watched parts again, and liked it more than I did with my first run through.

At first, I decided I’d never watch the movie or musical again, but it grew on me on the second time around — especially Kevin Kline and his unbuttoned shirt. I mean.. his musical and acting talent.

Rex Smith (who I’d never heard of before) was amazing. The pipes on him. WOW.

The resolution on this video is not great but the singing….sheesh!



I had to look him up to see if he had been in anything else and apparently, besides his stage work, he’s most well-known for starring in a show called Street Hawke in the 1980s as well as for being a popular singer in the late 70s with his song You Take My Breath Away.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Linda Ronsdadt. I really don’t think I had a clue she sang this amazingly. I don’t know a lot about her at all so her voice totally shocked me! I thought she was just a pop singer . . . I feel embarassed I didn’t realize her range.

The Pirates of Penzance was released on Pay TV at the same time it was released in the theater, which made it a flop at the box office because theater owners boycotted it as a form of protest. Boy, if the theater owners from back then could only see what’s going on these days with movie releases!

Because of the boycott, the film ended up making less than a $1 million total during it’s entire time in the theaters.

It also received mix reviews from critics, but over the years it has become a type  of cult classic among musical theater fans.

Those who have seen it over the years, especially when they were young, hold a special place in their heart for it.

Cat Smith of Film Obsessive had this to say about Angela replacing Estelle Parsons, who was in the original Broadway production:

“The movie version of the Papp production came out in 1983. It’s pretty much the same experience as the stage. The biggest differences are some superfluous cuts to the score and the upgrading of the character Ruth. No offense to Estelle Parsons (we love her), but let’s face it—Angela Lansbury would be an upgrade of pretty much anyone.”

Of when Ruth and the Pirate King return to find Frederic she writes: “Apparently, once officially rejected by Frederic, Ruth went back to the pirates who not only welcomed her, they got her a fabulous makeover to boot. Not going to lie, my boyfriend and I have this head canon in which the Pirate King and Ruth wind up together since he knows better than to be prejudiced against a hot older woman. They do their best to frump her up for Act 1 but let’s face it—Queen Angela. Need I say more?”

(Aside: I had considered watching Angela in Sweeney Todd for this movie-watching event, but — wince — that really isn’t my type of movie/Broadway musical. Maybe I’ll watch it at some point, though.)

In past posts I have shared with Angela thought of the movie she was in, but….I couldn’t find any interviews with her about this one so I don’t have that. I do, however, have some trivia/facts.

Trivia or facts:

  • Kevin Kline won the 1981 Tony Award (New York City) for Best Actor in a Musical for “The Pirates of Penzance” Broadway 1981 to 1982 production and re-created his role in this cinema movie. It was Kline’s second Tony Award after having won one for “On the Twentieth Century”. Kline also starred in the precursor New York Central Park stage production and that park production’s subsequent made-for-television movie, The Pirates of Penzance (1980).
  • Linda Ronstadt loved the musical so much when she read about it that she played the part of Mable first in Central Park and then on Broadway for $400 a week. She then played it in the movie. It was her only movie role. She was nominated for a Tony when she played it on Broadway.
  • In Act II, there is an extra song (“My Eyes Are Fully Open”) that is not originally from “The Pirates of Penzance.” It’s a modified version of a song from Sir W.S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan‘s “Ruddigore”. The inclusion of this song required Kevin Kline, Dame Angela Lansbury, and Rex Smith to sing one of most dizzyingly rapid songs in the entire Gilbert and Sullivan catalogue. (source IMdB)
  • The source Broadway stage production was preceded by a 1980 Joseph Papp production of “Pirates of Penzance”, which was part of a “Shakespeare in the Park” series of free plays in New York City’s Central Park, which had the same cast of principals as the movie and the Broadway stage production (except for Ruth). (source IMdB)
  • Writer and Director Wilford Leach, with this movie, knew what kind of movie he wanted to make. Leach wanted to create an “illusion of reality” which actually was “reality askew”. Leach, according to the January-February 1983 edition of Coming Attractions Magazine, “tried to delineate a colorful and comic world that is always true to its own logic.” (source IMdB)

Have you seen this version of the musical or the musical itself anywhere?

Cat from Cat’s Wire shared her thoughts about the movie here.

Up next in my movie watching journey, I have switched things up again and have replaced the Murder She Wrote two-part movie with Please, Murder Me from 1951, starring Angela with Raymond Burr.

The rest of the list remains the same:

July 25 – The Mirror Cracked

August 1 – The Court Jester

August 8 The Picture of Dorian Gray

August 15 – A Life At Stake

August 22 – All Fall Down

August 29 – Something for Everyone

Additional resources:

The Pirates of Penzance: For Some Ridiculous Reason…

https://filmobsessive.com/film/film-analysis/film-genres/comedy-films/the-pirates-of-penzance-for-some-ridiculous-reason/

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirates_of_Penzance_(film)

IBdB trivia: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086112/trivia/

Summer of Angela: Gaslight (1944)

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 14 Comments

This summer I am watching Angela Lansbury movies for the Summer of Angela.

This week I watched Gaslight (1944), which was Angela’s first movie and also her first nomination for an Academy Award. I think I stated before that she won the Oscar, but she didn’t. Whoops!

She was 18 years old when she portrayed Nancy, the odd, boisterous and flirty housemaid of Ingrid Bergman’s character.

After I watched it, I knew this movie was going to be hard for me to write about without giving tons of spoilers and without expressing my strong desire for one particular character to die, or at least suffer greatly by the end of the film, but I am going to try not to in case any of you who haven’t watched it want to watch it later.

Ahem.

Sorry for being so blunt about wanting a character to die or suffer, but…. it is true.

This movie is about a woman who is made to believe she is insane.

That’s pretty much the description. Here is a little more from Google, though: “After the death of her famous opera-singing aunt, Paula (Ingrid Bergman) is sent to study in Italy to become a great opera singer as well. While there, she falls in love with the charming Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer). The two return to London, and Paula begins to notice strange goings-on: missing pictures, strange footsteps in the night and gaslights that dim without being touched. As she fights to retain her sanity, her new husband’s intentions come into question.”

It stars Ingrid Bergman as Paula Alquist, Charles Boyer as Gregory Anton, Angela Lansbury as Nancy Oliver, and Joseph Cotten as Brian Cameron. 

When I asked my 80-year-old mom if she wanted to watch the movie with me this week, she said, “No! Oh no!” and looked horrified.

That didn’t make me feel excited to watch it until she explained it wasn’t a bad movie, just somewhat dark and creepy. I told her that her response reminded me of how she might react if I asked her if she wanted to watch The Birds with me. The Birds is my mom’s least favorite movie.

When I was a child, she once came rushing into the house from mowing the lawn.

“The birds!” she cried waving her arms over her head, brushing at her hair. “The birds! They were swooping! Swooping down at me like in that movie! Swarming me! The Birds!! The Biiiiirds!”

Needless to say, that was not a movie I ever watched with her and won’t ask her to watch again.

Anyhow, Gaslight is based on a UK version of the movie, which was based on a play called Gas Light (two words). As far as I know, the American version is considered the better version since it was nominated for seven Oscars, winning two, including one for best actress for Ingrid.

Joseph Cotten portrays a police inspector, whose interest in an decade-old murder case is piqued when he sees a woman who looks like the victim. It turns out the woman is the niece of the murdered woman.

Cameron wants to know more about what is going on and why the niece never leaves the house, or if she does it is for a very short time and never without her husband. He finally gets his chance when Paula stands up to the controlling Gregory and tells him she wants to leave the house for an event they were invited to by a woman she knew as a child.

Throughout the movie her husband has been accusing her of stealing or moving things, suggesting she doesn’t remember when she does the these things and hinting, more than once, that she might be insane. Even at the event she finally is able to go to he accuses her of stealing his watch, which leads her to having a near mental breakdown in public.

As the movie goes on, we begin to wonder who is actually crazy, but we do know that her husband seems pretty horrid and abusive. We also know that one reason Paula thinks she is crazy is because she notices the brightness of the gaslights decreasing and increasing throughout the evening, something no one else in the house seems to notice.

I don’t want to give too much away, but this movie did have me on edge throughout the entirety. I felt such anxiety for Ingrid’s character and a lot of anger toward her husband, though I wasn’t sure what was really going on.

Angela’s character was evil and selfish. That’s the only way I know how to describe her. She definitely was brilliant in her role because she made me so uncomfortable. If I could describe her even more succinctly, I would say “what a trashy little tart.”

What Angela said about the movie:

Angela was 17 when she auditioned for the movie.

“As far as I was concerned, I was very consciousness at the age,” Angela said in an interview with the SAG-AFRTA Foundation. “So I went about learning my lines and listening to George Cukor direction and he directed the test . . .I did it with an actor called Hugh Marlow who played the part of Charles Boyer’s role (for the test) and we did a very extensive test.  I’m glad we did. Cukor took great care because I think he really wanted me although the first decision was that I wouldn’t play it, you know, I was too young. But I signed a contract anyhow because Albie Mayer saw my test when he came back from a trip back east to see his horses … and he saw my test and said ‘sign that girl.’”

Angela said she had a lot of interaction with L.B. Mayer, who ran Metro-Golden-Mayer (MGM) studios and that she was very fond of him. Not only did he sign her but also her mother and wanted to sign her twin brothers, but they decided not to let the twin sign. Instead, they later became writers for the movie and television industry.

After being nominated for Oscars for both Gaslight (1944) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), Angela says she was never considered a starlet, always an actress. That made her job a little easier.

Angela said that she was glad in many ways that she didn’t win the Oscars she was nominated for because in her view many people who win Oscars second guess what their next steps will be. They often overthink what roles they need to take next because they are always thinking about being as good as an Oscar winning role, she said. She thinks that for her she didn’t have that pressure. She just went with whatever she wanted to do next, though she was a little disappointed that MGM didn’t have anything lined up for her so she could use the momentum of the success from her first two movies.

She went on with laughter in the interview saying that she was nominated for her first two movies and “it all went downhill from there.”

Angela was  nominated again, however, for The Manchurian Candidate in 1963 where she played the role of a mother to an actor who was only three years younger than her. She told the interviewer that she felt the fact she was given roles where she was playing older women showed her that she was always a character actor.

In a 2000 interview with NPR’s Fresh Air, Angela recalled how the audition for Gaslight really came about.

“Well, I was introduced to the studio, which was MGM, by a young man who was being considered for the role of Dorian Gray. His name was Michael Dyne. And he arranged that the casting director would see me, this young English girl, who at that time was – I think I was 17. And I went to the studio with my mother and was interviewed for the part of Sibyl Vane in “Dorian Gray.” And the head of casting, a man called Billy Grady, came into the room while I was sitting there. He said, sort of whispered in the ear of Mr. Ballerino, the man I was seeing, you know, you should suggest that this young lady meets George Cukor, who’s trying to cast the role of the maid in “Gaslight.” And so right then and there, I was whipped off to meet George Cukor. And so, well, the rest, as they say, is history.”

The interviewer asked Angela if she was aware of some of the darker elements of the film, or was she a little naïve because she was so young at the time.

“I can’t honestly say, except by my on-set demeanor,” she responded. “I think my on-set demeanor was a very, very careful, covered, rather shy attitude about what I was doing. And when I say that, I don’t mean that I was aware of that, but I know from my own uncertainty about my personal – you see; I’ve always been a very private person. When it comes to the work, I’m on solid ground. When it comes to the – Angela Lansbury the young woman, I was on very uncertain ground.”

She continued: “So, I had to marry those two rather carefully. And that’s why, as I say, I always felt that I had to, shall we say, tread rather warily from a personal point of view. Just listen and hear and do what I was told and asked to do. I could discuss it, but I – in most instances, I was pretty quick to pick up directorial indications from somebody like George Cukor because he was extremely clear and funny and helpful. And what he said I understood. So you could say I was fortunate in that I could understand what he wanted and then deliver it. This is what I do, and this is what I always maintained throughout my career – was that I had that ability to take direction and also to understand what the – what was required of the character.”

Angela turned 18 on the set and had this to say about that time: “Oh, it was required that there was a social worker with me until my 18th birthday, which I celebrated on the set of “Gaslight,” actually. And I always remember it because Ingrid and Charles and George Cukor were so wonderfully kind. And Ingrid gave me lovely bottles of Strategy, which was a lovely, smelly cologne, which – I’d never had anything as lovely as that – and powder, you know, sort of talcum powder and things that, you know, set. I always remember that. It’s interesting, the things you do remember.”

This part made me laugh so I had to include it: “And we celebrated. And I was able to take a cigarette out of a packet in my purse and smoke it, which I hadn’t been able to let on, that I had been smoking from the time I was, really, about 14 years old. I say that without any sense of pride at all. And I stopped smoking 30 years ago. But nevertheless – I don’t know if you remember, but I do smoke a rather long Cigarettello in the movie. And that was part of the business in the movie of “Gaslight.” But they only let me puff it. And I wasn’t allowed to inhale, as Mr. Clinton would say.”

As Mr. Clinton might say. Wahahaha! I remember that interview with him. He didn’t inhale and he didn’t have sexual relations with that woman…well, we all know how that second one went.

Anyhow,

You can read and listen to the full interview with Angela here https://www.npr.org/2022/05/27/1101435407/angela-lansbury-looks-back-on-her-great-performances-on-stage-and-screen

 It was fascinating to me.

A bit of trivia or facts:

  • According to TCM.com: “MGM head Louis B. Mayer, determined to eliminate the competition for what was expected to be one of the studio’s biggest hits of the year, ordered all prints of the 1939 British version purchased and destroyed. Prints, however, did survive, and the film turned up again in the 1950s, often under the title of the original 1938 stage production, Angel Street.”
  • MGM tried to sue Jack Benny in the 50s because he presented a spoof of the movie called Autolight. Benny played Charles Boyer’s character and Barbara Stanwyck performed as Bergman. The comedians lawyers argued the skit was in the realm of parody and therefore not a copyright violation and the suit was dropped.
  • Ingrid Bergman was filming The Bells of St. Mary’s when she won her Oscar for Gaslight. The star of the film, Bing Crosby, and the director, Leo McCarey, had previously won Oscars. In her acceptance speech Ingrid quipped: “I am particularly glad to get the Oscar this time because I’m working on a picture at the moment with Mr. Crosby and Mr. McCarey and I’m afraid if I went on the set tomorrow without an award, neither of them would speak to me.”
  • From TCM: “In the big confrontation scene between the chambermaid and the lady of the house, Lansbury was required to light a cigarette in defiance of her mistress’s orders. But because she was only 17, the social worker and teacher assigned to her would not allow her to smoke until she was a year older. When her 18th birthday arrived, Bergman and the cast threw her a party on the set, and the scene was done shortly after.”
  • Director George Cukor suggested that Ingrid Bergman study the patients at a mental hospital to learn about nervous breakdowns. She did, focusing on one woman in particular, whose habits and physical quirks became part of the character. (source IMdB)
  • The first time Ingrid Bergman encountered Charles Boyer was the day they shot the scene where they meet at a train station and kiss passionately. Boyer was the same height as Bergman, and in order for him to seem taller, he had to stand on a box, which she kept inadvertently kicking as she ran into the scene. Boyer also wore shoes and boots with two-inch heels throughout the movie. (source IMdB)
  • Charles Boyer‘s wife, Pat Paterson, was pregnant with what would be the couple’s only child. Boyer and Paterson had been trying to have a baby for many years, and Boyer was exceptionally nervous while making Gaslight. He rushed between takes to call and check on his wife’s health as the expected birth date grew nearer. The baby was expected to come after Boyer had finished working on this movie, but he arrived early. Boyer broke down in tears when he was notified, and he informed the rest of the cast and crew of his son’s birth. Production was halted for the day and the cast and crew opened up bottles of champagne to celebrate the birth. (source IMdB)
  • Angela had been working at Bullocks Department Store in L.A. before getting the part in Gaslight. When she told her boss that she was leaving, he offered to match the pay at her new job, expecting it to be in the region of her Bullocks salary of the equivalent of twenty-seven dollars a week. He was shocked to find out she’d be earning $500 a week. (source IMdB)

Cat from Cat’s Wire also watched the movie this week and you can read her thoughts here. She compared the British and American movie versions and a German televised version of the original play. I absolutely loved how she compared these three!

Here is my full schedule of movies I am watching for the Summer of Angela:

Blue Hawaii

The Manchurian Candidate

National Velvet

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

July 11 –  The Shell Seekers

July 18 – Murder She Wrote: The Celtic Riddle

July 25 – The Mirror Cracked

August 1 – The Court Jester

August 8 The Picture of Dorian Gray

August 15 – A Life At Stake

August 22 – All Fall Down

August 29 – Something for Everyone

Additional resources:

Angela Lansbury Looks Back on Her Great Performances on Stage and Screen:

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/27/1101435407/angela-lansbury-looks-back-on-her-great-performances-on-stage-and-screen

Gaslight Review: The Hollywood Reporter: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/gaslight-review-1944-movie-999932/

From TCM: https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/166/gaslight#articles-reviews?articleId=29976

The Essentials (Gaslight): https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/166/gaslight#articles-reviews?articleId=89327

In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood, Gaslight: https://crystalkalyana.wordpress.com/2015/10/04/gaslight-1944/

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

Summer of Angela: The Manchurian Candidate

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 23 Comments

This summer I am watching movies starring or co-starring Angela Lansbury.

This week I watched The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

 Angela was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actress for her performance as Eleanor Shaw and, wow, did she deserve that nomination.

First, a description of the movie from Google:

Near the end of the Korean War, a platoon of U.S. soldiers is captured by communists and brainwashed. Following the war, the platoon is returned home, and Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is lauded as a hero by the rest of his platoon. However, the platoon commander, Captain Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra), finds himself plagued by strange nightmares and, together with fellow soldier Allen Melvin (James Edwards), races to uncover a terrible plot.

Highlights for me:

The opening scenes are completely mental and crazy. Scary too. I don’t want to give too much away in case you’ve never seen this. So I won’t. All I can say is seeing one of the Baldwin sisters from the Waltons ask a man in her sing-song voice if he’s ever killed anyone messed me up just a bit.

An interesting cinematography tactic used a few times in this movie is to make the character closest to the camera blurred out and the person in back in focus. This is something photographers sometimes do, commonly by using the rule of thirds, but it is more common to have the forward subject in focus and the person in back blurred out. I find this director’s decision to film scenes this way very interesting and visually interesting.

Frank Sinatra’s acting is superb in this. I have never seen him in a serious role, so it threw me a bit, but he was so good.

I can’t recall if I have ever seen Laurence Harvey in a movie before, but he was very compelling as Raymond Shaw.

What I thought of Angela:

Angela was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actress for her performance as Eleanor Shaw, the mother of Raymond Shaw.

Nothing about the character in this movie reminds me of the Angela who is in Murder She Wrote. Now, of course the woman played many roles, but I am most familiar with her on Murder She Wrote so I had to prepare myself for seeing someone completely different and that is exactly what I got. Eleanor Shaw is absolutely not Jessica Fletcher.

Eleanor Shaw is vindictive, mean, and hungry for money and power.

“It’s a horrible thing to hate your mother,” Raymond tells Bennett at one point. “I didn’t always hate her. As a child I just sort of disliked her.”

That was before she did something he could not forgive.

Eleanor is completely domineering with her second husband, Raymond’s stepfather, and a senator.

She tells him what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.

“I keep telling you not to think.” She tells him at one point in the movie. “You are very, very great at a great number of things, but thinking isn’t one of them, hon’.”

Eeek.

She gave me chills.

(photo)

Here is a clip of Angela as Eleanor.

What I thought overall:

I was so nervous during this movie. I was nervous they wouldn’t believe Frank’s character about the dreams he was having and that the movie would just keep going on this nightmare path of him trying to prove he wasn’t crazy.

It was just a total mind trip all the way through, and I kept wondering who was a spy or sleeper agent and who wasn’t.

I figured out the ending before it happened and I was certain what one of the final scenes would be but I was still biting my nails.

I was actually very excited when part of the ending I thought would happen did happen. I was a little sad at the part of the ending that I didn’t expect.

The acting in the movie was outstanding across the board. Of course the messaging was a bit too timely for today and that was unnerving.

A bit of trivia:

There was a rumor that this movie was pulled from ever being shown on TV because of how it featured similarities to the assassination of Kennedy and speculation by some that the idea for his assassination came from the movie. Some say that Frank Sinatra locked the movie up in his vault because he controlled the rights to it. Another movie he starred in that involved assassination, Suddenly (1954) also disappeared for years after the Kennedy assassination.

According to an article on TCM.com, “. . . Sinatra’s control only extended to the film’s rights after seven years. There is, however, apparently some truth to the story that after JFK was murdered a year after the picture was released, some exhibitors requested it be given another run to capitalize on the event but that United Artists refused.”

Another disputed theory involved  a financial and legal disagreement between United Artists and Sinatra but that was later said to not be true. Some even said Sinatra simply neglected to keep the movie in distribution. (Guess he was too busy with the mob, etc. *wink*). To this day there isn’t really a definitive answer on why the movie fell out of existence for so many years but I lean toward all of the fall out from Kennedy’s assassination.

“What is certain is that during its “lost years,” the film built up a great reputation,” the TCM article states. “’The movie went from failure to classic without passing through success,” noted its screenwriter, George Axelrod. When it was finally re-released in 1988, it was a big box office hit (as well as a success on its subsequent video/DVD release) and earned even more rave reviews as one of the best pictures of that year.”

I thought it was so odd that Kennedy was given a copy of the film to preview in 1962.

A few more trivia tidbits (some of these may not be totally accurate but I don’t have time to vet each one):

  • Frank Sinatra reputedly had a swimming pool designed with a large painting on the bottom of the Queen of Hearts playing cards  … I won’t say why in case you haven’t seen the movie.
  • Director John Frankenheimer once claimed The Manchurian Candidate didn’t do well financially because the studio chose to promote another Sinatra picture, The Pride and the Passion (1957), but that film had actually been released five years earlier.
  • Frank Sinatra broke the little finger of his right hand on the desk in the fight sequence with Henry Silva. Due to on-going filming commitments, he could not rest or bandage his hand properly, causing the injury to heal incorrectly. It caused him chronic discomfort for the rest of his life.
  • The movie was filmed in only 39 days (!!)
  • According to executive producer Howard W. Koch, the budget was $2.2 million. Of that amount, $1 million went for Frank Sinatra‘s salary, with another $200,000 for Laurence Harvey, leaving only $1 million for everything else.
  • The topic of this movie was considered politically so highly sensitive that it was censored and prohibited just before its theatrical release in many of the former “Iron Curtain” countries, such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria – and even in neutral countries such as Finland and Sweden. The theatrical premiere for most of those countries was held after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1993.
  • By his own admission, Frank Sinatra‘s best work always came in the first take. Writer, producer, and director John Frankenheimer always liked the idea of using the freshness of a first take – so nearly all of the key scenes featuring Sinatra are first takes, unless a technical problem prevented them from being used.
    (Sources, Imbd and TCM.com).

What Angela said about the movie:

Frank Sinatra actually wanted Lucille Ball for the roll of Eleanor Shaw.

“That would have been fascinating,” Angela said. “You wouldn’t believe that she could be this devil incarnate though.”

As for how she got the part she said, “I think Frankenheimer (the director) just put his foot down.”

“I had just finished working with John on We All Fall Down and he came into the room where we were looping some lines and he slapped this very heavy book on the table and he said to me, ‘There’s your next role.’”

He told her what the book was, who wrote it, who was going to write the screenplay and added, “You’ll be fabulous as the mother.”

Angela was actually only three years older than the man who played her son. Say what??!

To become an older woman she simply acted as she felt the character would act, without worrying about age, she said.

In an interview she said many people asked her what it was like to work with Frank Sinatra and she always tells them she doesn’t know because they didn’t have any scenes together other than a quick one where they were getting their coats on.

It wasn’t until later she learned that Frank Sinatra was an integral part of making sure the movie was made.

“I know that Frank wasn’t the easiest person for John to work with,” she said. “But they seemed to have an alliance. I think Frank understood what a tremendous opportunity it was for him to play this role. He knew that his friend (President) John Kennedy adored the book. Frank talked to JFK about the role and one of his questions oddly enough was ‘who’s playing the mother?’”

Of the suspense of the movie, Angela said, “You really didn’t know who anybody was.”

Of the movie overall she said, “I think we all knew we were in rather racy territory. We were doing something pretty unique and different. This is going to turn a few heads you know.”

“It was out of circulation for many, many years,” she said. “It came back in 1988 as a revelation to be had. The whole generation saw it, who recognized it for what it was and they absolutely took it to their hearts and it became the most important piece of work any of us had ever done. Suddenly John Frankenheimer was recognized, Frank Sinatra was recognized as an actor. I was recognized as an actress who played one of the most evil women in human history. I had a whole new acceptance from an audience who didn’t know who the devil I was. So I have great feelings of fondness for The Manchurian Candidate for that reason.”

Have you seen this movie?

I rented it on Amazon, but it is also streaming on Google Play, Pluto TV, Apple TV and Fandango. Or your local library might have it.

Later this week I will be writing about a totally different movie than The Manchurian Candidate, National Velvet.

Other movies I will be watching for this Summer of Angela are:

June 27 – Bedknobs & Broomsticks

July 4 – Gaslight

July 11 –  The Shell Seekers

July 18 – Murder She Wrote: The Celtic Riddle

July 25 – The Mirror Cracked

August 1 – The Court Jester

The Manchurian Candidate trailer:

____
Additional sources:

Trivia & Fun Facts About THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (TCM) with spoilers!! :https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/19293/the-manchurian-candidate#articles-reviews?articleId=136794

Angela Lansbury talks to Alec Baldwin about The Making of The Manchurian Candidate: https://youtu.be/Sjqs66SoTXQ?si=MeU5SbwFRMBnlRhP

Angela Lansbury looks back at the making of The Manchurian Candidate: https://youtu.be/kLwO-2_GIbM?si=cWQoMwa1ARwzzAX6

Springtime in Paris: Charade

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I have been watching movies that take place in Paris for the last couple of months.

For our last week, we watched Charade with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant.

Directed by Stanley Donen this movie was released in 1996 and tells the story of Reggie Lambert (Hepburn) and Peter Joshua (Grant) who meet briefly on vacation in the Alps. When Reggie returns home, she finds that the husband she’d planned to divorce has been murdered, but before he was murdered, he sold the contents of their apartment, including all of her possessions.

A mystery ensues and what follows is a movie that was good but was very confused about which genre it should be in.

When Reggie returns to Paris and her empty apartment, a police officer approaches her and tells her that her husband was found in his pajamas dead by the train tracks and that he was apparently trying to leave Paris quickly.

While Reggie was discussing her husband at the beginning of the movie with a friend, and we learned he was wealthy, we learned very little about him and now it is clear that Reggie also learned very little about him. As the police show her several different passports from different countries with his face on them, she begins to realize she didn’t know the man at all.

Reggie is bewildered later when Peter Joshua shows up to her empty apartment and says he read about the murder in the newspaper and wanted to check on her.

She believes the police think she murdered him.

Peter offers to find her a hotel room until she can find a new job and apartment.

Peter asks what she’s going to do now that her husband has been murdered and she says she’s going to try to get her old job as a translator back.

At his funeral, Reggie is even more bewildered, because there aren’t any guests other than her and her friend. Three American men (James Coburn, George Kennedy, and Ned Glass) show up and either spit on him, poke his body, hold a mirror to his nose, to make sure he is dead, or say something inappropriate. James Coburn approaches her and doesn’t offer condolences. He just says, “Charlie had no reason of doing it thatta way. No siree.” and walks away.

Um..okay…poor Reggie is even more bewildered.

A large man then approaches, handing her a letter requesting she visit the American embassy the next day to discuss the death of her husband.

She shows up to meet with Walter Matthau who seems to know her husband. He informs her that her husband was wanted by the CIA and his real name was Charles Voss. He also tells her that her life might be in danger.

He suggests that she somehow has the money her husband earned from selling all their possessions. That money is the same amount he stole from the United States government during World War II, he says. He instructs Reggie that she needs to find the money and return it to him before the other, dangerous men find her.  Looking for help and someone to talk to, Reggie contacts Peter, who decides one way to help is take her out for a night on the town to cheer her up. What results is a very strange game where people have to pass an apple down a line of people only using their chins and necks.

So..yeah..that was strange and uncomfortable to watch. *laugh* I am not sure how the actors did the scene without totally falling apart in laughter or embarrassment.

It was nice to see Cary’s familiar goofy expressions in this scene. I’ve noticed watching his later movies that he doesn’t loosen up the same way he did when he was younger which is natural, but also hard to watch sometimes.

The game leads Reggie and Peter in some compromising positions where they pause to look at each other for a long time and you can tell in that moment that Peter is thinking about what it would be like to kiss her and vice versa.

It’s all fun and games until all three men track Reggie down at the club and begin to threaten her for the money they think she has.

This movie is categorized as a comedy/thriller which makes it a little hard to figure out at times. I sometimes wondered if I was supposed to laugh or feel dread during certain scenes. There is a terrifying scene where one of the men (Coburn as Tex) keeps lighting matches and dropping them on her lap while she screams and cries and I couldn’t laugh at that scene so I don’t know what the director and writers were going for – maybe that was it — to have the viewer not sure what to think.

When Peter convinces Reggie to tell him what he is going on, he decides he will help her find out why she is being pursued and tells her that he will keep the men from hurting her. Now we viewers have to  decide with Reggie who Peter is and if he is really a good guy or not.

I read that Cary actually didn’t want this role at first because he said he felt like a predator, going after the younger Audrey.

That’s funny since he was in many movies in his older years where he was “going after” younger women and he married a woman much younger than him, but I digress….

Cary turned 59 during filming and it was this movie that made him decide it was time to stop playing the romantic lead. The reviews focusing on the 26 year age difference between him and Audrey was one big driving factor in this decision, he later said.

He was so uncomfortable with the idea of their age gap he asked for the script to be changed so screenwriter Peter Stone made Audrey the aggressor and Cary the man trying to fight her off.

Stone said he wrote things like “Can’t you just think of me as a woman?” and have Cary say, “I’m already about to get into trouble for transporting a minor above the first floor.”

He then says, “Come on, child, let’s go.”

Stone said, “Cary made me change the dynamic of the characters and make Audrey the aggressor. She chased him, and he tried to dissuade her. She pursued him and sat in his lap. She found him irresistible, and ultimately he was worn down by her. I gave him lines like “I’m too old for you, get away from me, little girl.’ And ‘I’m old enough to be your father.’ And in the elevator: ‘I could be in trouble transporting you beyond the first floor. A minor!’ This way Cary couldn’t get in any trouble. What could he do! She was chasing him.”

When I first started the movie, I was afraid I wasn’t going to like this film at all. Cary’s acting was stilted and “off” for me right from the start.

I found some parts of the movie confusing and odd because of its identity crisis, or inability to choose between being a comedy or a thriller, but I don’t want to spoil too much of the movie by commenting on which parts.

What I will say is that it was just weird to that Audrey’s character continued to throw herself at Cary’s character even when she isn’t sure who he really was. And this is just after her husband has been murdered and she is being pursued by people who want money her husband stole.

I enjoyed the action and the movie overall but really would have liked it the movie had picked a lane and stayed in it.

This was Cary’s chance to finally work with Audrey, by the way, after turning down leading roles in at least four movies she’d been in — Roman Holiday (1953), Sabrina (1954) and Love in the Afternoon (1957). He’d turned them all down because of the quarter-century age difference between them, according to TCM.com.

The rumor at the time was that he’d also turned down the role of Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady because he didn’t want to work with Audrey. This wasn’t true, but instead was a decision made out of respect of Rex Harrison who had created the role on Broadway.

The article on TCM.com reads: “In the Barry Paris biography, Donen recalled that “Cary thought he was going to do a picture with Howard Hawks called Man’s Favorite Sport? [so he] said no to Charade. Columbia said get Paul Newman. Newman said yes, but Columbia wouldn’t pay his going rate. Then they said get Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood. So I got them and Columbia decided they couldn’t afford them or the picture. So I sold Charade to Universal. In the meantime, Cary had read Hawks’s script and didn’t like it. So he called me and said he would like to do Charade.”

I want to share another quote from the TCM article because it is such a funny story: “ In Audrey Hepburn: A Biography by Warren G. Harris, the director recalled: “I arranged a dinner at a wonderful Italian restaurant in Paris. Audrey and I arrived first. Cary came in, and Audrey stood up and said, ‘I’m so nervous.’ He said, ‘Why?’ And she said, ‘Meeting you, working with you – I’m so nervous.’ And he said, ‘Don’t be nervous, for goodness’ sake. I’m thrilled to know you. Here, sit down at the table. Put your hands on the table, palms up, put your head down and take a few deep breaths.’ We all sat down, and Audrey put her hands on the table. I had ordered a bottle of red wine. When she put her head down, she hit the bottle, and the wine went all over Cary’s cream-colored suit. Audrey was humiliated. People at other tables were looking, and everybody was buzzing. It was a horrendous moment. Cary was a half hour from his hotel, so he took off his coat and comfortably sat through the whole meal like that.”

Despite that awkward first meeting, the pair apparently hit it off very well, even ad-libbing some of their lines.

Do you ever look up trivia like this for movies when you watch them or am I just the weirdo in the group?

Have you ever seen this one? What did you think of it?

You can read Erin’s thoughts here: https://crackercrumblife.com/2025/05/08/springtime-in-paris-charade/

If you wrote about today’s movie, or any of the movies we watched during this movie event, you can post your links below.

Also, thank you so much for participating and I hope you all had fun taking part! Do you have an idea for a themed movie event? Let us know in the comments!

I hope you will join us for the next one, though I am not sure when we will do it. Erin and I both have a lot going on in our personal lives with family health situations so we might not hold one until autumn. Not sure yet. We will have a meeting of the minds on it at some point.

We are, however, holding Drop In Crafternoons where we meet on Zoom and do crafts of any kind while chatting.

I had planned to try one this weekend but things are a bit up in the air right now with my parents’ health and the fact my whole family came down with a cold/virus and I am waiting to see if I am next, so we are sticking with one on May 24th for now.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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Classic Movie Impressions: That Touch of Mink

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

I needed something to distract me from every day life last week so I watched That Touch of Mink with Doris Day and Cary Grant. I am very certain I’ve watched either all or part of this movie before but it has been years so I didn’t remember much about it.

This is quite a modern movie for 1962.

Cary Grant is a no nonsense, yet still kind and understanding, businessman and Doris Day is a young woman from a small town living in a big city and trying to find a job.

This movie was meant to be a comedy, so I tried not to be too uptight about how Cary Grant was essentially trying to get into Doris Day’s pants without actually committing to a relationship for the entire movie.

I have to say that I didn’t really like Cary for most of this movie and my husband said it is probably because of the fact Cary really didn’t want to make the movie, according to articles he has read about it. While I didn’t find articles online specifically saying he didn’t like the film, I did find information that Doris Day wrote in her autobiography that Cary was polite and professional on set but that there was really no “give and take” between them.

First a little summary:

This movie takes place in 1962 starts with Doris Day walking down the street and getting splashed by a car that Cary’s character (Philip Shayne) is riding in. He feels bad but he can’t stop because he is on his way to a very important meeting. We find out later that Doris’s character (Cathy Timberlake) is looking for a job and Philip is a shrewd but also generous businessman with a friend, Roger, (played by Gig Young) who is a bit of a leach. Philip does actually feel awful about splashing Cathy and tells Roger he’d love to find the woman and apologize.

Luckily they are looking out the office window not long afterward and see Cathy walking into a diner across the street.

He orders Roger to take her some money to apologize. Roger is hoping the woman will want to tell Phillip off. He’s sick of Phillip getting all the women despite his flippant attitude. Cathy does want to tell Phillip off so Roger takes her to Phillip immediately.

Unfortunately for Roger, Cathy falls for Phillip immediately. Phillip sees this as a chance to sweep another woman off her feet by taking her on trips around the world.

He starts to do just that and Cathy wants him to like her so she goes along with him — flying to Baltimore for a speech he’s giving, then to Philadelphia for a quick dinner. One night he even takes  her to a New York Yankees game, into the dugout where we meet the real Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, and Yogi Berra.

Soon though, Phillip wants her to go on vacation with him to Bermuda and she’s not sure if she means he wants her to stay in the same room with him or if they will have separate rooms. He definitely wants her to stay in the room with him, which causes her to breakout in a full body rash and skuttles his plans.

She’s a good girl from Sandusky, Ohio after all. Girls from Sandusky don’t go running off with men on vacation and sleep with them unless they have a ring on their finger and have said “I do” to marriage vows.

Cathy returns home disappointed in herself because she didn’t sleep with Phillip but also fairly annoyed at him for thinking she would after they’ve known each other for only a short time.

She wants to break out of her boring girl mold, though, and decides to try again — telling Phillip she’ll go with him again to Bermuda and she will give him what he wants. She doesn’t say exactly that but the viewer gets her drift.

Sadly, things don’t work out this time either but you will have to watch the movie to find out why.

The movie is a series of miscommunications, silly tropes, and goofy interactions. One of those miscommunications is between Roger and his therapist. Roger is sharing the story about Cathy and Phillip but the therapist walks out of the room and only hears part of the story, leading him to believe that Roger is becoming involved with another man, which I thought was a very progressive (for lack of a better word) joke for the early 1960s. That joke carries on throughout the movie with Roger continually trying to update the therapist on Phillip and Cathy but the therapist instead believing that Phillip has been trying to woo Roger instead.

I found it interesting that this movie was one of the last ones where Cary was a leading man.

It was his 69th movie and he was in his 50s. An article on TCM.com states that he must have known his time for playing leading men was waning.

“He made one more picture in which he was the dashing leading man, Charade (1963), opposite Audrey Hepburn,” the article reads. “After that, he appeared as a grizzled old beachcomber in Father Goose (1964), then as a British gentleman who plays Cupid for the young romantic leads in Walk Don’t Run (1966), his last film before retiring from the screen.

The article goes on: “Doris Day’s string of box office hits continued though with somewhat diminishing returns over the next six years in ten more films. After With Six You Get Eggroll (1968), the actress retired from the big screen. Her hit TV sitcom, The Doris Day Show, ran from 1968 to 1973, changing formats and storylines almost very season.”

As for my feelings on the film, I liked it overall but didn’t like the message that women should just go sleep with men they are not married to. The end of the movie would have feminists of today growling in anger but it was most likely what made most every day movie goers happy at the time.

I couldn’t figure out while I watched it if Cary was bored during the movie or if it was how he was playing Phillip Shayne. Maybe he wanted Phillip to have no real personality beyond seeming bored and like he expected women to fall in bed with him. The man didn’t even seem excited by the prospect of sex. He just seemed to expect that it would happen, and he would move on to the next woman.

Years ago, I was reading about Cary and his use of LSD as an attempt to help him with his depression and other mental issues. Many psychiatrists at the time prescribed LSD as part of psychological therapy. It wasn’t yet a recreational drug.

Both Gig Young and Cary used the therapy and as I researched for this film I read that Gig sadly killed his 31-year-old wife and then himself in 1978 when  he was 64. I wonder how much the drug affected his brain at the time and left him worse off than he had been. He was also an alcoholic, though, so that most likely played an even larger role than the LSD. Either way it is sad.

 I also sometimes wonder if the drug was why Cary seemed so blasé and uninterested in his movies during this particular time period.

I don’t think this is a movie I would watch again but it was a fun escape.

I should also  mention the other star of the movie: The Automat.

The Automat was an automatic-type diner where restaurant goers could go in and choose what they wanted by pushing a button on what looked like post office boxes and then could open a door and the food would be slid to them through the tiny hole. I had never seen anything like it before this movie. Cathy’s friend Connie worked at one and delivered the food. That’s where Cathy would go to talk to her. It seemed like a very busy job since Connie and only one or two other co-workers would have to slide the food into the little box for the people to retrieve.

Have you ever seen this movie? What did you think of it?

Classic Movie Impressions: The Prisoner of Zenda

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) is a cinematic spectacle. Grand halls, sweeping ballrooms, wildly decorated courtyards, and captivating costumes.

I absolutely loved it and am so glad I stumbled on to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and decided to do a marathon of his movies to learn more about him so that I could discover this movie.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr.  is not the leading man in this one but he steals the show in every scene he is in. He is deliciously evil.

The leading man, Ronald Colman, is absolutely amazing as well, especially since he is playing two parts in this one. He is so amazing I feel another marathon coming on but of his movies.

An article on TCM.com agrees with me about this version (Okay, I agree with the article).

“ . . . of all the dramatized versions of Anthony Hope’s 1894 tale of adventure, love and honor, the 1937 black-and-white movie version, produced by David O. Selznick for his Selznick International Pictures stands as the definitive adaptation.”

It is easy to see why this movie is called by critics one of the best “Swashbuckler” movies of all time. I say that since this is one of the original Swashbuckler movies without it we wouldn’t have Pirates of the Caribbean, The Princess Bride, and other more modern adventure movies.

 And without the 1894 novel — The Prisoner of Zenda: Being the History of Three Months in the Life of an English Gentleman by Anthony Hope — we wouldn’t have had the movie at all.  Anthony Hope Hawkins was a part-time lawyer who wrote the book in one month from what I read.  

The novel sold more than 30,000 copies in Britain and the U.S. and helped to establish the adventure genre that would later be explored even more by authors such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H. Rider Haggard. The book, according to an article to TCM, has never gone out of print and has continued to sell thousands of copies each year.

The movie is the most referenced Swashbuckler film, TCM further states, which is probably why it was remade at least seven (!!) more times over the years, including one only about 15 years after the 1937 version, which was not the first. There were actually two silent movies of the book made before this version.

The 1952 version was shot frame for frame, according to articles I read online. I think I might watch the one released in 1952 later on and then compare the two, but I highly doubt that the 1952 movie or any of the others (including two made-for-TV movies and three television shows) will top the 1937 one, especially when it comes to Douglas’s performance. Yes, Doug and I are on a first-name basis now. I feel that we are getting to know each other enough now that we can dispatch with the formalities.

When I first saw Douglas in The Rage of Paris, I immediately thought how much he reminded me of Cary Elwes in The Princess Bride – his smile, his delivery, his expressions.

In this movie that similarity came even more into focus and especially during an amazingly well-choreographed and filmed fencing scene between him and Colman.

The two enjoyed a sparring of words while sparring with their swords, reminding me of the scene between Elwes and Mandy Patinkin on the Cliffs of Insanity in The Princess Bride. Perhaps Golding was influenced by the movie? I don’t know but if I research any more for this post, I’ll never publish it.

Let’s finally get to the plot of the movie. Finally…I know!

We have an Englishman named Rudolf Rassendyll (Colman) who has gone to a small country located somewhere between Vienna and Bucharest (not named in the film, but in the book it was called Ruritania). He has gone there for a fishing expedition at the same time the king of the country is being coronated. Zenda is a small area in this unnamed country where there is good fishing and boar hunting and where the king, Rudolph V (also portrayed by Colman), has a hunting preserve and cabin. RudolfV and his advisors Col. Zapt (C. Aubrey Smith) and Captain Fritz von Tarlenheim (David Niven, who I recognized immediately from other movies I’ve seen him in) run into Rassendyll in the woods and realize how much the two look alike.

I’m a little confused by the scene where Rassendyll tells the king they look alike because of their ancestors  — the king’s great-great-great grandfather and Rassendyll’s great-great-great grandmother — most likely had an illicit affair. In the beginning of the film, he acts like he’s coming to the country to hunt and knows nothing about the king or how much he looks like him but five minutes later in the film he’s telling the king he knows he looks like him and why. This is probably something that is explained better in the book.

All I can say is thankfully they both have the same British accent even though the King is from a kingdom in Eastern Europe, or they wouldn’t be able to understand each other.  Har. Har.

Minor complaint. Let us move on.

This news from Rassendyll about their probable relationship cracks the king up and he invites Rassendyll back to his hunting cabin where they get completely roaring drunk and Rudolftalks about his coronation scheduled for the next day and his half-brother Duke Michael, who hates him. He also speaks of his cousin Princess Flavia (Madeleine Carroll) who he will wed shortly after the coronation. After everyone else is unconscious from drinking too much, Rudolfdecides to drink a bottle of wine gifted to him by Michael.

 Uh-oh. Bad idea.

When Rassendyll wakes up the King is unconscious on the floor, drugged. The king’s advisor says the king isn’t dead, but he won’t be in any shape to be coronated that which means that Michael could be crowned instead. A plan is hatched to have Rassendyll pose as the king only for the coronation and then to be smuggled out of the country and sent back home.

Of course, we have foreshadowing here that tells us that all will not go as planned and, indeed, it does not.

Douglas portrays Robert of Hentzau, the henchman (for lack of a better word) of Duke Michael, the king’s brother who wants to take over the throne.

He shows up for the first time with a crooked, mischievous smile, like in many of his movies, and lets us know immediately he is the comic relief and a completely swarmy cad. A very attractive cad, though, I must say.

Let’s put it this way —Hentzau is all frat boy, and I could not stop watching him when he was on screen.

There was a lot about this movie I could not stop watching — the acting, the scenery, and the exquisitely detailed and breathtaking costumes designed by Ernest Dryden.

The Prisoner of Zenda was originally going to be released by MGM, but was bought by Selznick for his own studio, right around the same time he was working on Gone With The Wind (1939).

If MGM had produced it, they were going to use it as a vessel for more money makers from power team William Powel and Myrna Loy of the Thin Man movies. A musical was also a possibility. That all went out the window when Selznick bought it.

“Zenda was already a proven commodity in print, on the stage and in previous film versions,” writes Roger Fristoe for TCM.com. “And the recent abdication of England’s Edward VIII led Selznick to think that a story of kings and coronations would be timely.”

John Cromwell, a former actor who had previously only directed romantic dramas, was chosen to direct, which some questioned.

Selznick explained the decision had to do with Cromwell’s experience with European audiences.

“In doing a picture like The Prisoner of Zenda, which is aimed at least fifty percent toward a foreign market,” he wrote in a memo. “It becomes important to get a director who at least has the judgment and taste to respect the sensibilities of audiences which are sensitive, particularly in England, about the behavior of royalty.”

Cromwell had a lot of complaints about the cast, though, including Niven and Douglas, who he called lazy and overindulged. He even dismissed Niven at one point because he didn’t find his humor humorous. Ha. But Selznick overruled him and brought Niven back, saying he was bringing life to an otherwise dull role.

 James Wong Howe was the cinematographer for the movie and his work was amazing, in my humble opinion. The various angles, the lighting, all of it.

Look at this fencing scene..the shadows on the walls..

The cinematography, great acting, and astounding costume and set design made this movie overwhelmingly enchanting.

There are a couple of scenes where Colman is filmed talking to himself and I was really interested to know how that was done before the days of digital special effects. Luckily the TCM article explained that for me.

“The special effects created by Howe included a subtle and convincing scene where Colman appears to shake hands with himself. A 3 X 4′ optical glass was placed in front of the camera, and Colman exchanged the handshake with a double, whose head and shoulders were subsequently matted out with masking tape on the glass. The scene was re-photographed with Colman in a different costume and everything matted out except his head and shoulders. When the images were combined, the effect was complete and quite realistic.”

Because I loved Douglas as Hentzau so much, I thought I’d close this post by sharing some quotes that show how delightfully jerky he is in the movie:

“I don’t like women who lie to me. They don’t usually do it, as a matter of fact. I usually do them to them.”

“Someone once called fidelity a fading woman’s greatest defense and a charming woman’s greatest hypocrisy. And you’re very charming. And Michael’s very busy and likely to be more so.”

[during his sword fight with Rupert, Rudolf Rassendyll “retreats” towards the drawbridge’s controls]: “You’d be a sensation in a circus. I can’t understand it. Where did you learn such roller skating?”

To Rassendyll: “Why don’t you let me kill you quietly?”

Rassendyll: Oh, a little noise adds a touch of cheer. You notice I’m getting closer to the drawbridge rope?

Henztau: You’re so fond of rope, it’s a pity to finish you off with steel. What did they teach you on the playing fields of Eton? Puss in the corner?

Rassendyll: Oh, chiefly not throwing knives at other people’s backs. (A reference to a previous scene).

Have you ever seen this version or any version of The Prisoner of Zenda?

What was your impression of it?

Up next in my series will be Gunga Din, one of his more famous movies, from what I’ve read.

The rest of the movies I will be watching include:

The Young At Heart (January 30)

Having Wonderful Time (February 6)

Chase a Crooked Shadow (February 13)

Sinbad The Sailor (February 20)

The Rise of Catherine the Great (February 27)

The Sun Never Sets (March 6)

You can also find my impressions of previous movies in the series, as well as other classic movies here: https://lisahoweler.com/movie-reviews-impressions/

Comfy, Cozy Cinema: Kiki’s Delivery Service and a Comfy, Cozy Giveaway

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are watching Comfy, Cozy movies this September and October and this week we watched Kiki’s Delivery Service, a Studio Ghibli animated movie.

We are also announcing a very fun and exciting giveaway for a comfy, cozy gift basket which you can enter to win at the giveaway link at the bottom of this post!

Kiki’s Delivery Service was released in 1989 in Japan by  Hayao Miyazaki, a Japanese animator and filmmaker, and was based on a book called Witches Express Delivery Service.

The movie was animated by Studio Ghibli (which Miyazaki was a founder of) for Tokuma Shoten, Yamato Transport, and the Nippon Television Network.

According to information online, “The English dub was produced by Streamline Pictures for Japan Airlines international flights in 1989. Walt Disney Pictures produced an English dub in 1997, which became the first film under a deal between Tokuma and Disney to be released in English. It was released to home media in 1998.”

This was a very sweet movie with little action but a lot of heart.

First the background – Kiki is a witch and the tradition is that witches leave home at the age of 13 and travel away from their family for a year to learn what their skill in life is.

Kiki’s mother insists she take her old, reliable broomstick so Kiki flies off into the night with her all black cat JiJi and finds a small town to settle in. She ends up living with a baker and starts a delivery service – delivering packages with the use of her broom.

The bakery is owned by Osono and her husband, Fukuo, who are expecting a child.

Kiki also meets a friend – a boy named Tombo who wants to be her friend more than she wants to be his for most of the movie. Tombo likes to invent things – especially things with the potential to fly. At one point he invites Kiki to his aviation club but Kiki gets wrapped up in deliveries and gets caught in a rainstorm. This causes her to become very sick but Osono nurses her back to health and then pretends to have a delivery sent to Tombo so Kiki can see him and apologize.

During her first delivery, Kiki loses the toy she’s supposed to deliver and then she and her cat – who talks by the way – work to find a way to get it back to the child it belongs to.

Much of the movie is like this – just little stories or adventures that aren’t very exciting in some ways, but are calming and sweet.

It isn’t until more than halfway through the movie that more conflict arises because Kiki seems to be losing her powers, which she first notices when she can no longer understand JiJi.

Studio Ghibli is the design studio for many Japanese animated movies. Later many of these movies are dubbed into English and sometimes feature well-known American actors. In the one I watched (which was the Disney dubbed one from 1997) Kiki was voiced by Kiersten Dunst and the cat was voiced by Phil Hartman.

Kiki’s Delivery Service focuses on themes of independence and finding your place in this world.

It was the first Studio Ghibli film to find commercial success soon after being released – earning $31 million.

I wasn’t as swept up in this one as in previous Studio Ghibli films but as it continued it grew on me. It was a very quiet film and some of the Studio Ghibli films have a little more action so I wasn’t ready for it to be so toned down. Once I got into the story, though, I enjoyed it. The scenery and art, as in all Studio Ghibli films, was really beautiful.

I was rooting for Kiki – especially once she lost her powers and seemed confused about her next step.

While the makers of the movie and critics said the movie focuses on themes of maturity and independence, I also saw a strong theme of friendship, family, and trust.

Have you ever seen this one? What did you think?

Read Erin’s impressions of the movie here: https://crackercrumblife.com/2024/10/03/comfy-cozy-cinema-kikis-delivery-service/

Coming up next week will be the 1945 version of Blithe Spirit.

Feel free to link up your own impressions of the movies at our link-ups. The links close at the end of the week but feel free to leave your blog post on future link-ups, even if it is for another movie.

Also, Erin and I are announcing our Comfy, Cozy Gift Basket Giveaway today.

I’m just going to copy what Erin wrote to share here because I am lazy *wink*: “We have some fun little goodies to be sent off to one winner, with more surprises to be added as well! We want to celebrate the season and this is just one way we would like to do that this year.

You can enter anytime between today and October 15th, and the winner will be announced on our blogs on Thursday, October 17th. Please enter via Rafflecopter and it is only open to those 18 or older living in the US.” You can enter here: https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/3614a4fa2/?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
https://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef

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February Favorites: movie impression of Amelie

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I had planned to write about our favorite movies this month and then she took a blogging break and it was a break that I realized I needed to because I’ve been spreading myself way too thin lately.

Erin has mentioned the movie Amelie a few times in the last year or so as being one of her favorite movies so this past weekend I suggested that I watch it since she was already watching it with her hubby and that we write about it today.

She, of course, readily agreed.

Amelie, for those not familiar, is a French film – so yes, I had to read subtitles because I am not fluent in French. It is about a young waitress who was raised by introverted parents who thought she was sick as a child and kept her inside most of her life. It was released in 2001 and the full name of the movie in France is The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain. Audrey Tautuo plays Amelie. It is directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet.

When she grows up she is very imaginative and begins to work behind the scenes to improve the lives of others. In the process, she might even improve her own. She begins to help others to combat her own loneliness.

This is a very quirky film with quirky camera angles and quirky writing and acting. Quirky is not a bad term in my book, in case you are wondering. I am a fan of quirky.

What is quirky about the film?

The writing, the camera angles, as I mentioned above and in how the narrator talks in present tense for part of the movie and then Amelie breaks the third wall to talk to us about her life in just one scene and then it is back to the narrator. I love when movies break “the rules” so to speak and breaking the third wall is one of those ways. If you don’t know what breaking the third wall means, it is when a character looks directly at the camera and speaks to the audience.

The movie features beautiful, vintage scenery throughout. The backgrounds are picturesque in an urban art style and the entire movie has a slight yellow tone like vintage film to give it a warm feeling. The main colors in the film (green, yellow, and red) are inspired by the paintings of the Brazilian artist Juarez Machado, according to IMDb.

Stories weave in and out of the main narrative of Amelie’s life, starting with her search to find the owner of a small box of mementos she finds in the wall in her bathroom and continuing when she works to return a book of photos from photo booths around the city so she can meet the man who collects the photos.

Each story is a life that Amelie touches and improves and each time she feels more alive and less isolated. Each character she interacts with is also strange and a bit eccentric, and the camera angles exaggerate these facts and the intricacies of Amelie’s imagination. She works to improve the lives of everyone around her, including her father who she encourages to travel the world by sending him photographs of his gnome in different locations around the world.

Eventually, helping others will inspire her to bring happiness to her own life.

There is only one person whose life she sort of messes with as revenge, but he deserves it. Trust me. And harassing him helps to improve the life of another person so it sort of evens out.


According to a couple of sources online, Jeunet said he originally wrote the role of Amélie for the English actress Emily Watson.  Watson didn’t speak strong French, however, and then she started shooting Gosford Park instead. Jeunet then rewrote the screenplay for a French actress. The film was shot in Paris for the most part with some studio shots filmed in Germany.

Tautou was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Actress for her role. She was 24 when the film was released.

Trivia on IMbD states that graffiti and trash had to be cleared from shots in Paris to keep the film’s fantastical feeling. This was sometimes a difficult task for staff.

Amelie has a 90 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a good thing if you don’t know. People love it, in other words. The movie was made into a musical on Broadway in 2015 and it was rereleased this year in theaters for Valentine’s Day. I have no idea if the musical was any good or not.

The movie is definitely fantastical – and a bit bizarre in places, to me, but not so bizarre that it’s creepy. More like whimsical bizarre. Not sure if that makes sense to some but it does in my brain.

One review I read of this on Rotten Tomatoes summed up some of my feelings about the movie: “I feel like it’s a beautiful love letter to the introverts out there with wonderfully magical imaginations who find it hard to connect to people in real life.”

This was a unique film that I don’t think I would have watched on my own, or discovered at all if it wasn’t for Erin’s suggestion. I will warn anyone offended by some sex and language, that this is a rated R movie. Neither is extreme but it still resulted in a R rating.

 I know Erin will have a lot more to share about it in her post, which you can find here: https://crackercrumblife.com/2024/02/15/february-favorites-movie-thoughts-amelie/

Have you ever seen Amelie? What was your impression of it?

Remembering Blockbuster

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 11 Comments

The year was probably 1994 (I don’t know. I’m a bit old. I can’t remember.) when my brother took me to the Mecca of video rental stores – Blockbuster. It was actually amazing we had one near us since we grew up in a very tiny town in Pennsylvania. It was about half an hour from us, but not such a bad drive really. It was located in a strip mall that now has seen better days with most of the stores gone and the parking lot a pothole haven.

(Not me in the photo *wink*)

If I remember right, I wanted to find a romance and he was probably looking for an action movie or maybe a foreign film. He watched a few foreign films and made me watch them at times. They were pretty good but I wasn’t a fan of reading subtitles back then. I’m better with it now.

Back then we would never have imagined we’d one day be able to download or stream our movies right from our TV. I mean, we didn’t even have cable at our house because the cable company refused to come to us since we were “in the middle of nowhere.” We had four channels brought into our TV by an old-fashioned wire hanger-style antenna on the back porch that Dad had to shift sometimes to get a better signal.

Yes, I am that old. Okay, I’m really not, but we were that poor.

Walking into Blockbuster back then was a bit overwhelming for this sheltered country girl but I loved walking up the rows and looking at all the different movies.

I’m not definite about this but I think the first time I watched the Irish movie Into The West was from a Blockbuster rental. Did you ever see that movie? It’s about two Irish boys who travel with a horse across Ireland after their dad, who is grieving their mother, hits rock bottom and tells them they have to get rid of this horse they found. That’s a very short version of what the movie is about, of course, but it is very good.

I also think it might be where my brother rented The Princess Bride for us to watch for the first time.

The movies weren’t the only thing that was tempting at Blockbuster. They had candy, sodas, and stuffed animals. I’m sure I bought some candy but never the stuffed animals because my mom always said I had enough and my brother said I was too old for such things by then. Little did they know that even as an adult I was buying stuffed animals and still cuddle many of them to this day.

Blockbuster sold all its corporate-owned stores in 2014. It no longer grants franchises to anyone but at one time there were 50 privately-owned stores. As of today, there is only one official Blockbuster store left open in the United States and it is in Bend Oregon, and is a popular tourist attraction, selling more merchandise than video rentals.

Do you remember renting videos at Blockbuster back in the day? What movies were you looking for when you visited?